Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing

UPDATE! Research Colloquium 2015 Programme of the day is now finalised with timings and presenters names and titles of abstracts! Please click here to take you to the programme. Also private coach information is now on the events page!

Following our hugely successful Inaugural Research Colloquium in 2013, we would like to invite Wolfson Fellows and Wolfson Postgraduate Associates to present an abstract/poster at the Second Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing Research Colloquium, on the 15th April 2015.

Attendees will be encouraged to vote for their favourite posters and abstracts so prizes will be available on the day.

The event will begin on the 15th April from 8.15am with breakfast rolls, pastries and fruit served in the Waterside Restaurant, followed by three themed keynote speakers and parallel sessions throughout the day. The Colloquium will end with a wine and canapé reception in the Waterside for all attendees and presenters. I am delighted to say that all members of our International Advisory Board will be in attendance and this will be a perfect opportunity to discuss research and network; with them as well as internal colleagues.

Increasing prevalence of obesity and low uptake of existing weight management programmes amongst men need novel approaches to engage them in weight loss. In 2009 we set out on a journey to develop and evaluate a men’s weight management programme that not only reached men but also kept them interested and which supported lifestyle change in the long term. Six years and 6 research projects later we have learnt a great deal: about interdisciplinarity, about collaborative working, about the power of randomised controlled trials and about what happens when trials finish. In this presentation I will tell the ‘story’ of FFIT and how interdisciplinarity and practical, collaborative, research is both challenging but hugely rewarding.

Biography

Sally Wyke BSc PhD FRCGP (Hon) is Interdisciplinary Professor of Health and Wellbeing and Deputy Director of the Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow.Sally is a social scientist who applies social scientific theory and methods to complex interventions to improve health and well-being. She also has expertise in developing pragmatic approaches to robust evaluation of complex interventions using comparative designs and mixed methods and applies her skills to support health in community and primary care settings.

Sally is Impact Champion of the Institute of Health and Wellbeing and convenes IHW’s impact, knowledge exchange and public engagement group. She also convenes the Institute’s ECR grant writing group and has an active role in supporting and mentoring social scientists across the Institute.

Sally has been awarded around 50 research grants, studentships or fellowships (including three programme grants) totaling around £8.4 million. She was co-PI (with Kate Hunt) on “Football Fans in Training” (FFIT) a hugely successful lifestyle programme for men delivered through Scottish top flight football clubs. Currently she is PI on EuroFIT, an FP7 award, that extends the ideas of FFIT to football clubs in Europe. She is also co-PI on an evaluation of the Deep End Links Worker programme, which seeks to enable those with complex health and social care needs to access community resources to improve wellbeing.

Stuart Murray - Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film Director, Leeds Centre for Medical Humanities, University of Leeds.

Abstract

Representing Disability: Cultural Narratives and in/dependence

Following the proliferation of disability representation in recent years, especially since the 2012 Paralympics, how should we gauge contemporary understandings of disability experiences? In what ways can an appreciation of cultural depictions aid in our evaluation of the places disability now occupies in society, where to ‘represent’ disability is both to speak of its depictions within cultural narrative and to work to advocate for greater inclusion and justice. The talk will focus on a number of texts and events – fictional, theatrical and media portrayals, but also the language used in medical diagnosis and by disability charities and foundations - in suggesting that, for all the advances that have been made in the visibility of people with disabilities in recent years, the ideas that underpin such representation still often function within narratives that make ‘natural’ assumptions about absence, lack and loss.

In proposing ways to move beyond languages of deficit, the talk will explore one of the most exciting ideas to emerge from contemporary critical disability studies, namely the potential disability experience offers to revise ideas of what constitutes ‘independence’ and ‘interdependence’ when considering questions of rights, social relations and individual subjectivities, for disabled and non-disabled communities alike.

Biography

Stuart Murray is Professor of Contemporary Literatures and Film in the School of English at the University of Leeds, where he is also the Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Medical Humanities. He was written widely on cultural representations of disability, especially autism – notably Representing Autism: Culture, Narrative, Fascination (2008) and Autism (2012) – and with composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad he is developing an autism opera for Opera North. His current book project is Disability and the Posthuman: Bodies, Minds and Cultural Futures, which will be published by Liverpool University Press.

Inattention is pervasive. It affects you and me several times a day. More notably, it impacts severely on a range of brain conditions, from neurodegenerative to developmental disorders. In people with these diagnoses, inattention rarely occurs in isolation but is often associated with other cognitive deficits in memory as well as motivation. Indeed, there is now considerable evidence to suggest that deficits in short-term memory might even contribute to the seemingly inattentive state. In this talk I’ll discuss some studies on attention, short-term memory and motivation and attempt to show how it might be possible to modulate inattention and apathy with neuromodulators.

Biography

Masud Husain is Professor of Neurology & Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford. He holds a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship.

He read Physiological Sciences at Oxford before completing his DPhil there. He was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT where he held a Harkness Fellowship. Masud was a Reader at Imperial College London and subsequently Professor of Neurology at The National Hospital for Neurology, and Deputy Director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. He held a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship from 2000-12 and was elected to Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2008.

This is the third in a series of six lunches for Affiliates to be held at St Chad's College.

Each lunch will focus on a theme of interest to our Affiliates, providing the opportunity for an interdisciplinary exchange of ideas which we hope will lead to exciting new projects and collaborations. Meetings will consider the following themes:

Research Themes

Message from the Directorate

The Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing exists to foster and disseminate the wide range of research undertaken at Durham University to improve human health and well-being. This is a truly multidisciplinary enterprise, spanning research across anthropology, biological and biomedical sciences, business, classics, education, engineering, geography, medicine and medical humanities, pharmacy, philosophy, psychology, social and community work, sociology, sport and theology. The Institute's research includes well-established strengths in research on primary care, public health, child development, cognitive neuroscience, medical anthropology, health geography, social work and medical humanities as well as exciting new developments in medical imaging, cardiology, health in the Global South, and mental health.

The Institute works in partnership with the University's academic departments and research Centres, many of whose members are among the Institute's Fellows.

The Institute has its main building on the University's Queen's Campus at Stockton-on-Tees. This impressive riverside campus is part of the transformation of an old industrial area into a world class location for education and research. It continues to contribute to the economic and social regeneration of the Tees Valley, and the Institute plays an important role in this respect through partnerships with the National Health Service, local government and community organisations.

An important principle of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing is that by working together we can achieve more than working separately.

If you are interested in learning more about our work or how you might contribute to our aims we would welcome hearing from you.